The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 5 – 1
God is building a house for His spirit. What that house will appear like when completed can be found in such passages as 1 Corinthians 13, Matthew 5, Philippians 4:8, Galatians 5:22-25, and so on. These verses represent the end result of God building perfect, righteous, holy character in us. But could you really make a house from scratch, having only a snapshot of the finished house? Sure, you could only make something that LOOKS like a house – but you could never make a livable house that way!
You’d have to guess at what holds up the roof; at what is behind the walls. You’d know nothing of insulation or foundation, wiring or plumbing; and so your house would collapse in on itself long before you ever finished it because it was only a facade that looked like a house. This is what most Christians do. They are supposedly trying to build a house for God – their own souls – and they spend countless hours reading Psalms, the beatitudes, the gifts of the spirit, and 1 Corinthians 13 – all pictures of a FINISHED house of God.
And they try to copy those things as they understand them; but without the FOUNDATION of the law! Without the STRENGTH of true faith! And just as they did with religion in general, they merely plaster an APPEARANCE of love and holiness over an unclean temple! this is exactly what Babylon did to religion, and what it deceives people into doing to their own souls! They teach them to pretend to be holy, pretend to be loving, righteous, and good without having any idea what those things truly mean!
And so instead of a building house for God, they have a mere pretense of godliness; a shallow affectation of love and humility pasted over a hollow, carnal soul! Rather than building a sturdy stone house for God, they’ve built cardboard shanties, ghost town facades that God wouldn’t set foot in. What is the foundation of our house? 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. Why does it matter? What is this building built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ?
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 . Is Jesus the only foundation? Ephesians 2:20. What is the foundation of the Bible? Galatians 5:14, Matthew 22:40. So we are to build our temples – our spirits – on top of Apostles and Prophets; they in turn built upon the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. Who in turn built His own temple out of the law, which was built out of the golden rule!
But what does that mean, exactly? How do you use Christ as a cornerstone? Are you to somehow catch Jesus, lay Him down on the ground, and stand on Him? Are you to just chant “my foundation is Jesus” over and over? What does it MEAN to have Jesus as your foundation?
First, read the story in Luke 6:47-48. Someone who comes to Jesus and OBEYS HIM is like a house (which is what we’re trying to build)! But he is like a house whose builder dug through the sand and anchored his house to a ROCK that doesn’t move. Jesus is that rock (1 Corinthians 10:4), but how did that man anchor to that Rock? By hearing AND obeying what Jesus SAID… and ONLY what Jesus said!
Now the other man in Luke 6:49 didn’t bother to dig down to the rock; he just started building right on top of the sand, which saved him a lot of time; he was certainly living in that house a lot sooner than the guy who had to dig down through the sand! But although he looked like a Christian faster, his house collapsed! But why, exactly?
What does sand represent in the Bible? Joshua 11:4, 1 Kings 4:20, etc. So if you anchor your building to that sand, what are you anchoring it to? The opinions of many other people! As you have learned the hard way, it takes many years of scraping that “sand” aside to get back to the plain, obvious teachings of the ROCK!
It’s really easy to go to a church, accept their doctrines wholeheartedly, and in a matter of a few weeks you can be a perfect Christian. Or rather, a perfect appearing Christian. But true change takes time, just as it takes time to shove aside the sand to anchor to HIS words instead of the words of thousands of years of sand! It is not easy to find what the Bible really says when the sand buries it so deeply; but if you don’t, when the wind comes, your house will fall, and you will be destroyed; this is referring to Revelation 7:1-3. When that happens, anyone not anchored on the Rock will collapse.
A MISGUIDED SPIRIT
Every living creature has a spirit (Genesis 6:17). The word “spirit” is the Hebrew/Greek ruwach/pnuema, respectively, both of which simply mean “air, breath, wind, etc.”. And all of these animals and humans have an idea of right and wrong. The job of our spirit is to identify and remember the truth. Whenever the beast says “I want…” the spirit is there, ready to say “On the other hand, I really should…”. It is this voice of reason which is responsible for most of the good things people do in the world today.
This is also what makes it possible to train animals to do tricks, or to learn not to pee on the carpet. Because they learn they shouldn’t do those things. This is why people say animals are creatures of habit. What they really mean is, animals are creatures ruled by their spirit. A cow learns which pasture has hay in it, and it troubles her when it’s in a different pasture. It doesn’t belong there, I get fed HERE, is her conscience’s thought. It’s a sin for it to be there, she would phrase it if she were a Christian.
The spirit is, for lack of a better word, your conscience. It is your noble aspirations, your better angel. It is what tells you to do the right thing, even when it hurts. It always advocates for good instead of selfishness. And yet… how does your spirit know what “good” means? It was created to encourage you to do the right thing, but how does it define “the right thing”? How does the cow know it’s a sin for the hay to be in a different pasture?
That’s the problem – her spirit knows no ultimate truth, which means her conscience judges righteousness by comparing new things to “the way it’s always been”. And that means that “righteousness” is synonymous with “tradition”, and “sin” is synonymous with “different”. Is that not how churches run today? “I know that’s what the Bible says, but that’s not what we believe”.
Everyone knows the slightly-apocryphal story of how a flock of sheep will mimic each other; when sheep are walking somewhere and one sheep jumps over an obstacle, all the other sheep behind it will jump in the same place, even if it gets moved… or even if there was never an obstacle to begin with!
This is, fundamentally, no different than growing up being a Sunday keeper. Long ago someone justified Sunday-observance by saying “we keep Sunday to honor Jesus’ resurrection”, and ever since people have been tripping over that same obstacle, even though the command never existed in the first place! The first sheep dreamed it up, and all the others blindly followed them!
Because like all beasts, people do what their family does, what their friends do, what is considered “cool” by their herd. And that is the problem with the spirit. Because the word spirit means “wind/air/breath” and anything made out of spirit, made out of air, can be called spiritual.
WORDS OF THE SPIRIT
What are words made of? John 6:63. What do you sing with? 1 Corinthians 14:15. Of course – because singing can’t be done in a vacuum! It requires air, spirit! Think about it – beasts can’t sing! Now, a happy beast can make the spirit sing (Isaiah 65:14). But do cows sing? Do sheep? Do horses? No… but a good horse will make the cowboy riding him want to sing.
So words are literally made of spirit – made of vibrations in the air. Likewise, hearing is done through the spirit, for without air you can’t hear anything! (Revelation 2:11). And if God wants to prevent people from hearing, naturally He closes off the spirit and makes them deaf (Romans 11:8).
So everything people say is spirit. And if you listen to them, then your spirit can be edited by them. What they say right and wrong is becomes what your spirit understands to be right and wrong. Which is why we shouldn’t just listen to any spirit without reservation (1 John 4:1-3). “Just follow your conscience!” is one word of advice that all Christians will agree on. Sadly, it’s wrong: 2 Corinthians 7:1. If the conscience/spirit should be followed without question, then how can it need to be cleansed from “filthiness of the spirit”?
See, we’re born knowing nothing. Everything your spirit knows, everything it believes to be right and wrong, is based on external sources. If those sources are wrong… then so is your spirit. The conscience is only as good as the foundation it’s based upon. If every word is based on fact, then it’s built on a rock; if every word is built on your grandmother and your preacher, it’s built on sand. Even if every word is built on an apostle of God, it’s still only anchored to a stone. But that’s still not the bedrock! Which is why you should anchor yourself to those stones only until you can reach the true Rock that cannot be moved!
Read Ephesians 4:14. Children are taught right and wrong by their parents, teachers, and society! So their spirits are anchored to the sand! And Paul’s “children in the faith” are commanded not to be tossed about by every WIND of doctrine! Because doctrines are carried by people’s spirits – by their consciences – their “winds”!
And if you’re not anchored to the ROCK, wind will blow you away! So when your church says “We must kill Jesus, for God’s sake” (John 16:2), then naturally, you’ll believe that’s the right thing to do because everything you know about right and wrong you learned from them!
RULING THE SPIRIT
Even the Gentiles have laws, and some of them are pretty close to the truth (Romans 2:14). Because ALL creatures have a spirit which tells them “should” and “shouldn’t”. And the embarrassing thing Paul was pointing out is that these Gentiles who followed their totally subjective spirits were more righteous than the highly educated but wrongly educated spirits of the Jews! What was wrong with the Pharisees? Romans 10:1-3. They had a kind of righteousness! (Matthew 5:20). They firmly, violently believed they were serving God! And they were; but not according to God’s commands – according to their OWN RULES! (Mark 7:7).
And their rules were based on sand, which could be blown to and fro by every new spirit that walked into the room with an opinion. What is sin? 1 John 3:4. What is righteousness? Deuteronomy 6:25. Right and wrong is not defined by a feeling, right and wrong is defined by law; specifically, the law of God, which is rooted in Truth. The world’s consciences are full of random, irrational laws and superstitions. Why do they refuse to walk under a ladder? Why do they say gesundheit when someone sneezes? Why do they say “knock on wood”? Why are they compelled to hold hands when they pray?
Not doing these things makes people very uncomfortable. It feels like a sin to them to pray without holding hands. And yet where is that in the Bible? It doesn’t exist. So why are their consciences enforcing this law “thou shalt hold hands while praying”? Think about it; where did your conscience learn right and wrong? From other people who are just as ignorant of God’s ways as it is! Your conscience means well, but it is badly educated by a selfish herd of beasts. And that’s why a conscience that is always obeyed is almost as bad as a beast who is always obeyed.
How are we commanded to treat our spirit? Proverbs 25:28. Our conscience is no better qualified, by nature, to tell us what right and wrong is than the beast is! Its only advantage is in the fact that its motivation is generally more noble. That’s the only thing that makes it better than the carnal heart.
A MENTAL FIELD
Let’s imagine that your mind is piece of land; in it there is a cow, the beast. And here and there you have fences, places that the beast shouldn’t go – your garden, your flower bed, your workshop, your front porch. Some of these places will actually hurt the beast (the tools in the work shop). Some of these places the beast will hurt others (the garden and flower bed). And some of them are places you just don’t want cow poop (your front porch).
In this metaphor, the fencing is the spirit; and the individual fences are the conscience’s rules. Beasts love to push against fences, as hard as they can. They love to find unlocked gates, and get out. Not because they really want what’s out there – but because the grass is always greener where they’re not allowed.
So there’s always going to be a struggle between these two (Galatians 5:17, Romans 2:15). The fence tries to keep the cow out of the garden, and the cow tries to see just how far it can bend the fence to reach behind it. And this is as it should be, because fences should make sense.
Wouldn’t it be strange to just run a line of fencing out that doesn’t connect to anything? It won’t keep the cows out of anything – it will just make them walk farther to get to the water trough. It doesn’t protect anything, it just inconveniences the beast! Or what if your conscience fences the beast into such a small corner there isn’t enough grass to eat; the beast has needs (James 2:16). And if your conscience’s rules don’t make sense, the beast will notice, and it will moo at you. Loudly.
And if your soul doesn’t notice and do something about it, it will break right over that fence, and be wary of trusting you next time! And it would be right to do so, for your soul had a responsibility to notice and defend the oppressed beast! But if your soul is a slave to your conscience, it will let your spirit make up rules, then add to those rules, creating a veritable maze of irrational fences going nowhere, protecting nothing. This will confuse and annoy the beast, and if it can’t do anything about it, it will morbidly depress the beast; is this a good thing? Proverbs 15:13.
The spirit that is too powerful loves to oppress the beast in the name of “doing the right thing”. But oppressing the beast is not the right thing (Colossians 2:23). It’s just a way of showing off how dominant your spirit is over your beast which means your spirit is not broken! But these fences aren’t in the place God would set them (Proverbs 12:10). They aren’t there to protect the beast from hurting itself or others! They exist solely to prove to others that you are the master of your beast (Matthew 6:16)!
And that creates a people who strain at a gnat, but swallow a camel. People who forbid healing on the Sabbath, but buy false witnesses to condemn a just man; people who reject God for the sake of the church (Revelation 3:20). In a more worldly sense, it creates people who are OCD or grammar Nazis, people who are excessively neat or hygienic, people who won’t touch slimy things or eat mayonnaise. All of these things are caused by irrational obsession with certain arbitrary rules of correctness or tidiness.
And it is the accepting of arbitrary rules, and then enforcing those rules as if they are divine revelation, that makes the spirit wicked. Because when the spirit’s rules aren’t based in facts, they’re like short sections of fences haphazardly placed across a field. Not only are such spirits not keeping their beast in check with proper walls, but the walls they do have are in irrational and irregular places. So the beast needs to be taught to respect fences; and the spirit needs to be taught to only build fences in places that need them!
And that’s why our beast is not the only thing that needs to be broken; our spirit needs to be broken as well. Broken, and taught that its fences are stupid and need to be torn down and put up from scratch!
A GOOD CONSCIENCE
The conscience must be educated fully as much as the beast, which means it must be willing to learn, and change, and become a better witness. Like the beast, it must be broken. But while the beast needs to learn faith, the spirit needs to learn righteousness. What is the job of the spirit? Psalms 119:105.
Remember, words are spirit. And what does the spirit do? Proverbs 20:27. So the word is a lamp to the feet; the spirit is a light to the body. Because words are spirit, and the holy spirit is the same as the holy Word of God (John 1:14), Who was also the light of the world (John 1:5-9), Who is the head of the body (Colossians 1:18), and that brings us back to Psalms 119:105 again!
Jesus-Word-Truth-spirit is the light of the body-church-world! (John 8:12). He is a lamp to their feet and a light to the path in front of them! But if Jesus is the head of the body, and we are made in His image then our own spirit is the light of our own body. But what if it’s not? Matthew 6:23.
So the job of the spirit is to be properly educated in the law. How? 1 Corinthians 2:9-12. Rather than letting ourselves be educated by the winds of doctrine in the world, we need to throw out everything the old spirit believes, and create a NEW spirit (Romans 7:6) with a whole new set of laws! You will notice that wasn’t the primary context of that verse; it was talking about the law of Moses. But our spirit’s job is to be a record of TRUTH. Moses had some truth; but not enough. That was why he himself said someone else would have to come finish the revelation (Deuteronomy 18:16-18).
So if your spirit only knows the law of Moses your spirit’s light will be dim. You must be FREED from the constraints of that conscience and write a whole new one! That is why the curse of that law had to be taken out of the way (Colossians 2:14), so we would be free to explore what God really meant by those letters on stone! The spirit doesn’t need to learn to do righteousness, because “doing” is not the job of the spirit, it’s the job of the soul. The spirit’s job is to know righteousness; to know exactly what the right thing to do is in any situation. And if it doesn’t know what that is, it needs to find out.
Continue reading in 1 Corinthians 2:13-16. It does this by comparing spiritual things with spiritual; by asking itself “WHY do I think that’s wrong? Who told me I should(n’t) do this? Do I trust them?” It needs to compare its spiritual beliefs with spiritual facts, and not “the words which man’s wisdom teaches”!
Every belief you have about right and wrong needs to be backed up with proof. Every single one. If you don’t have proof, you have no right to an opinion! And if you do then no man has a right to tell you that you’re wrong… unless he has facts which show you’ve misinterpreted your own facts (1 Corinthians 2:15).
Because see, that’s always going to be the problem. You can be wrong. You are wrong right now, and you will be wrong a lot more in the years to come, no matter how good your intentions. And the great secret that the spirit has trouble comprehending is… All growth starts with being wrong. Finding a place you’re wrong is TERIFFIC news! Because it means you’ve found a NEW place you can start being right! The perfect way for a spirit to react to being corrected is in Job 34:31-32. But most people act likeJob 34:33-37.
Your spirit fears that if one thing it believes is wrong… how can it be sure everything else it’s ever believed isn’t also wrong? And that’s the thing – it can’t! Because many things it believes most certainly are wrong! Your spirit spent decades absorbing right and wrong based on hearsay, and its entire belief system is built on a foundation of SAND! And the only way to fix that is to grab a shovel and throw that sand away!
DIFFERENT, THEREFORE WRONG
When you’re riding a horse and you give it an order, it may disobey. But it can disobey for two reasons; first, as we’ve discussed already, because it is afraid, lazy, or otherwise has a beast reason for disobedience. Basically, because it doesn’t trust you to keep it safe, fed, warm, and rested. But there is a second reason it might disobey you, a very different reason; because it thinks it knows more than you do. See, this isn’t a lack of faith in your intentions to keep it safe, but rather lack of confidence in your ability to keep it safe. And that is a spirit problem!
When you come up to a fork in the trail, a horse will always start walking one way or the other without waiting for you to tell it your choice. And in most horses, when you choose the other trail, the horse will object and toss his head. What justifies this rebellion in his walnut-sized brain? The horse rarely chooses at random. Usually, if one path leads back to the barn, he’ll be sure that’s the “right way”. Why? Because that’s where he wants to go, so he assumes it’s where you want to go as well. Him assuming this is fine; arguing with me when I tell him which way I actually want to go is not!
Animals are creatures of habit, just like people are because we both have the same spirit (Ecclesiastes 3:19). Your horse will almost always choose the path he’s walked before; why? Because it’s what we did before, therefore it’s the right way! Your way is different, therefore wrong! How many people do you know embody that motto?
When the soul and beast disagree, the beast always assumes “you don’t understand, I want it!”, or “you don’t understand, I’m afraid of something”. How often have you seen a child in the supermarket screaming at its mom “but I want it!”, repeating the same words over and over again. The only logical reason the beast can imagine why you wouldn’t give it something is that you didn’t understand that it wanted it! So it tells you again… and again… getting frustrated with you for not understanding the very simple fact that it WANTS it!
But when your soul and spirit disagree, the spirit will always assume the soul is incompetent! “No,” the horse’s spirit thinks “…you forgot! This is the right way, it’s the way we went last time, don’t you remember?” How does he know where I want to go? Is it really more likely that I forgot which way I wanted to go… or that he doesn’t understand where I want to go this time? And that’s the problem with the spirit. It doesn’t know any better, but it always thinks it knows better.
The job of a conscience is to be an adviser, not a ruler, not a nagging wife; it records laws, principles, and should remind you of them when your soul needs to make a decision. You need it to do that! But if you make a different decision, it should trust you and shut up. But it doesn’t. Since its job is to remind you to do the right thing, it assumes it’s always right! But the fact is, it’s wrong. A lot. And that’s not a sin… but it becomes one when the spirit refuses to hear other opinions, and defends itself when it should be open to their criticism. An example of this is Job 35:2-3.
These are the words of a haughty spirit. And these sum up not only what every person ever created thinks; but also what every conscience thinks, human or animal! It always has an opinion, and that opinion is always right-until-proven-wrong. If every time my horse and I have a disagreement, we have to have a wrestling match before we do things my way, is that a good horse? Is that a good spirit? I want to hear his opinion; but I want him to give mine the benefit of the doubt because I am a soul, and he is a servant who doesn’t see the big picture!
A DEFENSIVE SPIRIT
You can see now why God doesn’t want to dwell with a spirit who acts like it is always right; one who only yields after God drowns it in sufficient facts for it to mutter “well, I guess you might be right… this time” (Isaiah 57:15, compared to Job 1:9, 2:3-6 and Jonah 4:1-3, 9-11).
See, when we ride to that fork in the path and my horse mistakenly assumes I want to go right, and I nudge him to say “no, I want to go left”, how should he react? John 5:30. Only a very well broken horse will do that. Only a horse who cares about your will, and not his own, will think “oh, my bad, let’s go left then!”
But you’ve talked to people about the truth; you should have, at least. Did they defend their point… or were they just defensive? What I mean is, a defensive spirit will argue every word you say, not because they have facts on their side, but just because what you say is different from what he believes! (Proverbs 16:2).
When you have, say, a Bible verse or a scientific fact that proves your point, you should defend your point to the death. Not because it’s your point, but because you have facts that indicate it is the truth! I’m not saying you shouldn’t defend what you believe in, that you should just listen to anyone who tells you something. But you can defend what you think to be truth without being defensive of your opinion!
There is a big difference between an honest objection based on a desire for truth, and an endless barrage of spiteful objections however flimsy to defend yourself… your spirit! So if you tell someone they’re wrong about something and they immediately begin spouting excuses, arguments, and justifications… that’s an arrogant spirit.
It’s like the Sabbath; they were raised keeping Sunday. That’s tradition, therefore righteousness. Your belief is different, therefore sinful. And starting from that position, they seek arguments to defend it; Revelation 1:10, for example, “proves” Sunday worship to such a person. But it only proved it to them because they had decided to believe it before they started; this just gave their spirit a flimsy pretext to hide behind. All of the flimsy arguments against the truth you’ve seen me expose in these lessons were born in the mind of someone who had already chosen a side based on their herd’s opinions, and now was ready to give their spiritual life to defend it.
NOT WRONG
Let me take a practical example. Many years ago my wife and I exchanged some emails with a pen-pal who is a Russian Orthodox about why they venerate icons and images of saints. The Russian woman knew her Bible quite well, as well as her own church’s beliefs; so she sent a few emails, we sent questions back, and she sent a few more; full of scriptures defending her belief.
She sent the example of Moses’ brazen serpent and the images of angels in the temple of God, and argued that these were idols which were no different from an image of Jesus and Mary. And we argued those points, pointing out the destruction of the brass serpent when it was treated as an idol (2 Kings 18:4), but we made no real headway with her belief.
To her it was self-evident that images were good, and scriptures where God had said “thou shalt not make graven images” were balanced by “make unto thee a brass serpent”, and in effect canceled each other out… leaving her to choose the one she liked best. Then several emails into the exchange I realized something; she wasn’t proving that she should worship images… she was proving that it was allowed. In other words, she wasn’t proving the Bible commanded her to do this… she was proving the Bible permitted her to do this.
She made a valiant effort to try and show that the Bible allowed images. But she couldn’t bring up one scripture, nor one shred of evidence where the Bible commanded images. So as soon as we demanded scripture that says we should do this, she called us heretics and refused to discuss it any more.
Like just about everyone in the world today, no matter the subject, when they argue, they aren’t arguing to prove themselves right. They’re arguing to prove that they are not wrong. She wasn’t looking to the Bible to discover the truth, she was looking to the Bible to support the “truth” she already believed.
That’s exactly what most people do, and that’s arrogance – it’s defending their spirit, the beliefs of their tribe. People have chosen a belief based on what their herd taught, with minimal support from their own spirit; they’re not seeking to prove the truth, they’re seeking to defend what they already think is truth.
HERD INSTINCT
And that’s why when people argue, they rarely argue about the heart of the matter. If they just said “I believe this because I’m a Baptist, and nothing you can say will change that”, I respect that. It’s foolish, but at least we’re not wasting time arguing about days and words and laws.
Instead, they will “argue” with you by throwing absolutely any verse or fact that even vaguely supports their belief at you in the hopes that you will drown. They’ll dredge up every conceivable argument, however unfair, slanted, or downright untrue, to win because winning is much more important than being right.
And it is this herd mentality, this arrogance of spirit, which creates political parties and religions, sports jerseys and Gucci bags. It creates Baptists, Knicks fans, Kardashian followers, people who only buy Makita tools or drive Fords, Hatfields and Texans, because all of these people believe that their herd/clan/tribe/product is better simply because it’s the one they’ve chosen.
Oh, they’ll provide reasons why it’s the best. But the reasons came after the choice. And that means they aren’t reasons at all… they’re justifications. So when they argue, they have decided before you speak that losing is not an option. They are not, cannot, be wrong. What would a world be like where the Dallas Cowboys aren’t the best team? Or where their daddy’s church is wrong about what God is like? That’s simply not something they are willing to risk finding out.
They defend their ball team, not because it’s objectively the best team (fastest, strongest, most honorable, etc.), but because it’s their team. So they invent every technicality possible to justify their faith in the team’s goodness whether or not it really is objectively the best team!
Talk politics with anyone and you’ll see what I mean. Or watch CNN and Fox reporters consistently coming to opposite conclusions from the same facts… while both are wrong. Or watch a Catholic and a Protestant read the same Bible verse. No one can agree today because no one’s spirit is willing to accept TRUTH over the opinions of their HERD!
Saying this is offensive to most people I talk to, because they have team… SPIRIT. Their spirit has become aligned with their team, and you already knew this because you’ve used the phrase “team spirit” before! And when you challenge their spirit, and claim (or even imply) that their team is not the best team in the world, you’re not just challenging them, but the rightness of everyone they’ve ever loved. You’re challenging their collective goodness, the stable beacon of light in their life.
BARKING SPIRITS
If they’re lucky, their team/religion/party will jump behind them and support them, helping them mock your argument, question your credentials, or simply outshout you. That’s why arguing with any group of people, particularly a church, is rather like arguing with a pack of dogs. They bark at you and drown you out; and each bark encourages another dog to bark, and another; in this way, their collective spirit reinforces each other, and creates a wall you simply can’t defeat. You can’t shout down a pack of dogs because nothing you say will matter to them.
Most of the time they just repeat the same words over and over again anyway, just like Christians. Because they are not defending truth, or even themselves; they’re defending the pack at any cost. The roar of a lion might make them pause, but it won’t make them follow the lion – it will simply make them bark louder, and nip at the lion’s heels as he faces the other dogs. This is exactly what happened to Jesus, actually (Psalms 22:6-7, 12-16).
Did the Pharisees use their herd to justify their beliefs? John 7:45-48. And what happened when one Pharisee spoke up to defend Jesus (albeit in the most indirect way possible)? John 7:49-53. Were the Pharisees compared to dogs? Isaiah 56:10-11. So their consciences believed that it was better to protect the herd and defend their traditions than it was to follow someone who they knew was speaking the truth (John 12:42). Everyone in the world argues to defend their herd, their traditions, their spirit but not the truth!
So if their spirit isn’t a record of truth, what is it recording? Ephesians 2:2. People assume this is just talking about devils; but remember: true on every possible layer. The individual spirits of the individual Pharisees believed that it was GOOD to excommunicate anyone who believed Jesus (John 9:22). Not because He was wrong! But because He was from the wrong place! (John 7:41). Not because He wasn’t intelligent – but because He wasn’t educated by their schools! (John 7:15). So their spirits were not spirits that loved truth but spirits of disobedience! What did that cause them to do? Isaiah 29:24.
Notice that they erred in spirit, which prevented them from learning true doctrine. So instead of giving their beast fences in good places, their spirits have made their city, their mind, broken down, “without walls” – without fences! Because their mind is like a Wikipedia article that anyone can edit, tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine! And yet for all that, it still refuses to yield to truth! It still tosses its head at facts and the Bible, because “that’s not what we believe in my herd! That’s different… therefore it’s wrong!”
I DON’T LIKE IT, THEREFORE WRONG
If I asked you to eat a booger, you would say “that’s gross”! But is that an objective fact… or just an irrational opinion absorbed from the herd around you? After all, you didn’t think so when you were a toddler! On the contrary, it was broccoli and peas which were “gross”. Can you give me a valid reason why eating dog is wrong? Or what about eating grasshoppers, or bull testicles or sheep heads? Why are they “gross”? What makes them any different from eating shrimp or lamb chops? Or, for that matter, spaghetti or okra?
All of these things and many others are stored in your spirit; subjective opinions masquerading as objective truth. Most opinions are presented as fact, and then defended as dogma, when they should have never been presented as fact in the first place, but rather as the most subjective of opinions. For example, when someone says “that’s a great song!” that is an objective statement; but why is it great? Is it harder to play, is it more artistically done? Does it make people want to be more righteous? What objective truth makes this a good song?
What they really mean to say is “I like that song”. This is not the same thing at all. Your opinions are not laws. Your beliefs are not truth. Your ideas are not facts. Yet to add weight to your opinions you proclaim them to be facts; a song you like is objectively a great song. This is the essence of an uncontrite spirit.
Your spirit needs to know that it is ignorant. It needs to present its subjective opinions to your soul, and to the world, as what they are: subjective opinions, open to criticism and likely to be proven wrong. But almost no one does this. And most of those who pretend to do so don’t mean it. If you have a fact, then present it as fact. “The Bible says no man is in heaven”. That’s a fact; there is no reason to apologize for that statement or present it as opinion, because no scripture is of a private interpretation! (2 Peter 1:20).
But when you say “sour cream is nasty”, that’s a deeply subjective opinion which you present as a fact. But it is not objectively nasty. It seems nasty to you. Rotting meat is objectively nasty. What you should say is “I don’t like sour cream”. This is an objective truth about your subjective opinion.
But the vast majority of people disagree with your current opinion, because it is not nasty. It is not good, either. It’s simply sour cream, a creamy not-very-sour condiment which tastes good or bad depending on how it’s used and who is eating it. And the funny thing is, in a few years you might completely change the way you feel about it; and then you’d be just as convinced that the existence of sour cream is proof God loves us.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
As always, by the golden rule you already understand this. For if I were to tell you “I don’t like fish”, you would immediately respond “oh, you just haven’t had it made right/fresh caught/right kind!” How do you know I haven’t? How do you know I didn’t have fish prepared by Emeril himself? Bam!
Why do you automatically react to my statement – which, by the way, I presented as a subjective opinion – as if it were automatically wrong? Because you DO like fish, and therefore fish is objectively GOOD, therefore if I don’t like it there is something wrong with me! Because I dared to disagree with your spirit, and different is wrong!
So why don’t you – that is, your soul – do the same thing to your own spirit? Why don’t you treat yourself as you treat me? Why don’t you remind your spirit that just because it didn’t like something before, doesn’t mean it won’t next time. Whether that’s country music, peanut butter, or Nevada.
Maybe it just hasn’t had lima beans made right; or maybe it’s not fair to judge sushi by what you bought at a truck stop. And so when opportunity arises, your soul should force the spirit to try these things with an open mind. And force it not only to try it, but to try it without prejudice. Because if your soul isn’t on top of things, your spirit will “try” something, knowing it won’t like it, and naturally enough it won’t (Proverbs 18:13).
I don’t like fish. Other people are allowed to like fish. Because fish are not nasty. And knowing that, because my spirit is more broken, I regularly try fish. And surprisingly enough, I’ve found I DO like some fish, prepared some ways, some times.
So break your spirit, just as you broke your beast, force it to do what it was designed to do – be a source of law and order in your mind. Don’t let it be pushed around by the subjective opinion of your beast, other spirits, or even its own traditions. Make it be a beacon of light to your body, a fount of knowledge based on facts and objective truth.
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. That is what a broken and a contrite spirit is; one who eagerly listens to anyone, but only adds to its database of laws that which can be backed up by facts. One who shares its opinions as opinions, but stands behind its facts as facts, and will fight to the death for Truth.